The Bookie S Daughter

‘Liner Notes is, unsurprisingly, as good as its author’s songs, with moments of sharp humor alternating with real-life pain, and vivid reflections on love, death, and the whole damn thing. Loudon Wainwright is a true original: not like anyone else, just as he set out to be.’ Salman Rushdie In the late 1960s, Loudon Wainwright III established himself as a loner, deliberately standing outside the conventional. He recorded his first album in 1969, full of raw, angry poetry, but it was the 1972 novelty song ‘Dead Skunk’ that brought him popular recognition. Wainwright’s songs are as hilarious as they can be painful. In Liner Notes, he details the family history and fractured relationships that have informed him: the alcoholism, infidelities and competitiveness; the successes, joys and love. Wainwright writes poignantly about being a son, a parent, a brother and a grandfather while re-printing selections from his father’s columns and meditating upon family, inspiration and art. As plain-speaking on the page as in his songs, Wainwright lays everything bare in this heartfelt memoir of music and family. His lyrics adorn and inform the text, amplifying his prose and connecting his songs to the life he led. ‘He is unafraid and clear-eyed about the events of his life – and utterly engaging.’ Rosanne Cash ’Fans of the self-lacerating, painfully funny Wainwright III will find the memoir they want here’ Kirkus Reviews

When Candice Curry was a little girl, she put her hand in her father's back pocket so that she wouldn't get lost in large crowds. Little did she know that as she followed him, he was plying his trade: conning people. Her family drove stolen cars, lived in stolen houses, and shopped with stolen credit cards. Drug use was regular, as were visits from strange people who were trying to track her father down. Though she eventually cut ties with her father, Candice could not ignore the scars that were left from her childhood. This is her story, one steeped in secrets but one that, ultimately, led her to a place of forgiveness and freedom. As she struggles to understand her criminal father, as well as her own imperfect life, Candice comes to realize that we are not defined by our circumstances but rather by how we react to those circumstances. She's found peace in the knowledge that God doesn't love us because we're perfect--but because he is.

The cure for cancer is finally discovered after years of intense investigative research by a collaborative team led by a brilliant and courageous female physician, Molly Moravian. She perseveres despite numerous fiendish attempts by greedy big Pharma, the desperate aims of rogue colleagues, and the Mafia to steal her intellectual property. The plot is woven with history, intrigue, romance, and humor. The story opens during the last half of the 20th century in the crumbling New England seaport of New Bedford. Molly's childhood explores influences from the dual ethnic background of her Armenian and Jewish grandparents. She shares time with her father, Eddy, at his luncheonette, with its back-room numbers racket, as he becomes trapped and controlled by the New England Mafia. A key Mafioso protects Eddy and becomes an integral character throughout the lives of his family. As a student intern in the Ivory Coast, Molly learns something unusual about cancer that transforms her career focus as a medical researcher. During her medical training, she and a fellow student, Aaron, have an unplanned, passionate scene in the laboratory cold room, resulting in a broken agar plate that leads them to challenge the enigmas of cancer and its causes. They grow together, personally and professionally, and eventually marry. The narrative moves into its final setting of Boston, M.I.T., and Harvard Medical School. Molly painstakingly assembles a diverse collaborative team of researchers in their pursuit of a cancer cure. The team's detailed scientific methods and state-of-the-art techniques in the laboratory are highlighted over several years, tracing the intricacies of their quest toward a realistic and believable journey...the cure for cancer. Molly's groundbreaking team survives numerous disappointments, devastating setbacks, and mistakes, which only serve to strengthen the mettle of this strong and dedicated female oncology investigator. Woven throughout the scientific/medical advances on the march to a cure are true-to-life, heartwarming struggles of cancer patients and their loved ones, including Molly's best friend and a kind-hearted gangster. A surprise ending ties together this tender, emotional, ethnically charged story.

No one messed with Georgia Mae Collins unless they wanted to deal with Nicholas Santiano. For sixteen years he protected her as if she was family. But the day he no longer saw her as a skinny girl was the day he faced his biggest fight…his growing feelings for the woman he should not desire. As far as petite Georgia was concerned, she did not possess the qualities Nicholas looked for in a woman – she was definitely not his type and she knew it, so she never considered him to be anything more than a friend. But when her father is viciously attacked and Nicholas's sister is also hospitalized, Georgia and Nicholas are forced to turn to each other for comfort and discover the attraction is stronger than either one of them had imagined. But can their parents accept this new relationship?